Creative

Story Builder

Collaborative storytelling activity

Choose a Story Starter

About Story Builder

The team writes a story together, one contribution at a time, each person building on what came before.

Beyond being enjoyable, it practises something directly useful: accepting a contribution and adding to it rather than redirecting toward your own idea.

How to run it

  1. 1Provide an opening line to avoid the awkward start.
  2. 2Each person adds one sentence in turn.
  3. 3Go round the team once or twice.
  4. 4Read the completed story back.

Running it well

  • Provide the first line yourself. Asking a group to start from nothing produces a long silence.
  • Keep contributions to one sentence so nobody dominates.
  • Discourage ending the story, which leaves everyone after that person with nothing to do.
  • Read the whole thing back at the end. It is much better heard as a piece than experienced line by line.
  • Keep it to one or two rounds.

Frequently asked questions

How is this useful for a team?

It practises building on other people's contributions rather than steering toward your own, which is a directly transferable collaboration skill as well as being enjoyable.

How long does it take?

About ten minutes for one round with a team of ten, plus a couple of minutes to read the story back.

What if the story becomes nonsense?

That is the usual and expected outcome. The activity is about the process of building together rather than producing a coherent piece of fiction.